George Inness (1825-1894), American landscape painter, was largely responsible for introducing the French Barbizon style in the United States. The victim of epilepsy, he was also given to eccentric behavior and possessed a mystical personality. His son reported his father died viewing a particularly exquisite sunset; though weakened from his final illness, Inness threw his hands in the air while exclaiming, “My God! Ah, how beautiful!” then fell to the ground, dead.

Author, poet, and lyricist Ward Kelley is now offering a second version of history of souls. This book offers poetry that encompasses a number of themes:

Magical realism: Literature that looks at fables, myths, and allegory in the rational world.

Reincarnation: The philosophical and/or religious concept that the soul or spirit, after death, can begin a new life in a new body to learn new experiences and gain knowledge.

Metaphysics: A traditional branch of philosophy concerned with nature of being and the world that surrounds it.

This poetry book is divided into four parts:

Part one is called “Souls Alive” and contains poetry about famous people and/or events. There are poems about Joan of Arc, Sylvia Plath, Xerxes I ( a king of Persia), Akhenaton (a pharaoh of Egypt and husband of Nefertiti), Sandra Jones, Daniel DeFoe, Leo Tolstoy, and more…

Part two “Souls in Love”, Part three “Dead Souls”, and Part 4 “Reverse Prayer”, along with a special bonus chapter of lyrics inspired by history of souls by Ward Kelley and Don Whitaker album Gnarled Bones. Ward Kelley’s music business has grown into Wardco Studios, and the music uses many these poems as inspirations for lyrics and the music written for those lyrics. Listen free at WardKelleyArtists.com

Ward Kelley has seen his stories and poems appear in hundreds of journals worldwide. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His full biography, awards, and publications can be found at http://ward-kelley.org/bio/ Follow Ward Kelley’s Amazon Authors page at https://www.amazon.com/Ward-Kelley/e/B01BTEJY8E, which includes his blog posts. Follow his blog at WardKelley.org

Examples Poem with interesting author notes:

Pushing, Pushing

You were driven, you know
(why, oh why, can’t I?)
but never did locate the correct
way out, or proper note to score
the flight all the way, all the way.

Something hides, pushing, pushing,
from within your being, while your fame
and marriages and suicides
propelled you through
all our decades like a wiry wisp . . .
you knew the real impellent
generates at the core of your soul.

There, there boils the fury
of being . . . of residing on this side,
a tantrum against this shackle of body;
so it never mattered very much
if you sang out right, or married right,
or performed to expectations;
what mattered was the expression
of fury channeled into some acceptable
means to be heard or seen
around this imperfect world.

Why, oh why, oh why
can’t this vision of soul
let you go?
Why can’t you . . .
you knew all along
you couldn’t . . .
you knew none of us really could . . .
yet you were the wisp
who still yearned
out your trembling question,
why, oh why, can’t I.

Judy Garland was the assumed name of Frances Gumm (1922-1969). She made her stage debut at age three, spent several years in vaudeville, then at thirteen signed with MGM. She made many memorable movies, most famous of which was “The Wizard of Oz,” in which she played the role of Dorothy, a role originally intended for Shirley Temple. Garland’s personal life was usually in turmoil. The studio put her on diet pills, and before long she also needed pills to sleep and others to stay awake. By age twenty-one, she was seeing a psychiatrist regularly. She married five times, and endured several career disasters. On June 22, 1969, she was found dead on the floor of her London apartment, the coroner attributing her death to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Actor Ray Bolger, the scarecrow from Oz, commented, “She just plain wore out.”

About the Author

Ward Kelley

Ward Kelley has seen his stories and poems appear in hundreds of journals world wide. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose publication credits include such journals as: Plainsongs, Karamu, Another Chicago Magazine, Strange Horizons, Spillway, GSU Review, Rattle, The Chaffin Journal, Midstream, Zuzu’s Petals, Ginger Hill, Sunstone, Pif, Whetstone, Melic Review, Thunder Sandwich, Potpourri and Skylark. The recipient of the Nassau Review Poetry Award for 2001, Kelley is also the author of “histories of souls,” a poetry collection, and he has an epic poem, “comedy incarnate” on CD and CD ROM.

Kelley holds a Masters of Creative Writing. He published two novels “Divine Murder” and “Keenly Alive, Tony.” He also published two management theory books, “Warehouse Productivity” (2005Distribution Group, New York NY), and “Zen of Warehouse Management” (2005Distribution Group, New York NY), under the name Pat Kelley.